


to have a heartbeat

by trashijima (berryvonne)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, Kageyama Tobio-centric, M/M, Supernatural Elements, i can't believe that's a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 22:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12591552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berryvonne/pseuds/trashijima
Summary: i need to stop writing about tobio realising his feelings after a million years.title inspiration is from the lyrics of 'two ghosts'.





	to have a heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/gifts).



_my ghost / where’d you go?  
 **\- ghost, halsey**_

* * *

“Cut me some slack. I’m still getting used to it.”

Hajime sighed at the sting in Tobio’s words. The past few weeks have been hard on both of them; despite how many times Hajime had tried to comfort Tobio, the latter remained distant. Their meetings had grown rarer and riskier, and Hajime dreaded moments like these, not wanting what little time they had left being spent like this.

“Tobio—” He teetered a bit on whether to complain or comfort, but decided he didn’t want to be cruel when Tobio was the one left alone in this world. “I’m sorry, I’m still figuring out how this works, okay? Once I learn how I can come more often.”

Tobio tore his gaze away and kicked at a few pebbles on the roadside, evidently unsatisfied with the explanation. The wind had begun to pick up. A few leaves passed straight through Hajime and he knew his presence was fading faster than he’d like. Neither did he want Tobio’s mother to get suspicious of her son’s frequent visits to this part of the town, supposedly alone.

Most of all he wanted the younger boy to move on. He had it all planned: come visit Tobio for the last time, talk things out, and—and leave. Fade away. But weeks later here they were, Tobio staring at the gravel road, the hem of his navy blue tee already wrinkled from all the pulling. Neither of them were ready for the inevitable, really.

“Come on, I’ll walk you home,” Hajime finally broke the silence, and reached out, ruffling Tobio’s hair like he always did—except now it brought no more than a slight breeze, and, if what Tobio said was true, a faint whiff of Hajime’s aftershave. “People are gonna worry about you.”

* * *

“ _Please_  stop worrying about me.” Tobio sighed at his mother’s suggestion—therapy? Really?“It’s been a year _._ I’m fine.” He wished people would leave him be. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that Hajime was the closest person to Tobio throughout his childhood, and if that didn’t justify a year of grieving, Tobio didn’t know what did.

After Hajime left, every look directed at him seemed to be veiled with pity, even after all these years. Tobio hated it; sympathy was too often a burden, and whatever he thought about Hajime was definitely not on his  _‘things I’d like to share with strangers’_  list, if he had one at all.

His mother only pursed her lips at his response, and Tobio drew from that expression that he was going whether he liked it or not. If he knew that therapy meant weekly sessions with a family acquaintance whose ‘healing techniques’, as she called them, were putting on depressing flute music and making him answer a series of questions too personal for comfort, he would have protested harder.

“—so Tobio, I would like you to tell me what exactly went through your head when you found out.” The lady’s overtly sweet voice jerked him back to his senses.

“…I forgot.”

The lady didn’t seem fazed by his lack of enthusiasm. “And I can see you’re angry…who are you angry at? The person responsible for the accident? Yourself? Iwaizumi?”

“…Why would I be angry at Iwaizumi.” This sort of conversation had gone on for weeks. Iwaizumi, always Iwaizumi, after he’d complained about his mother and schoolwork and the weather and all that, she managed to tie everything into this one reason.

“That’s for you to tell me, dear.” Her lips curved upwards insincerely, the lady reached out to pat his hand. “but of course, I’m sure he wouldn’t want you endlessly in such a mood just because he has, ah, passed on. Wouldn’t it make him happier if he saw you…ah…making new friends, for instance?”

Honestly, Tobio really didn’t want trouble. His plan from the start was to go along with the therapist, convince her he was on the right path to a healthy mentality, and drop this nightmare altogether. His heart, however, had different thoughts.

“Don’t.” The words were out before he could stop them. “Don’t act like you knew him—don’t say what he would have done because he’s dead, he’s  _dead_ and I already remember it every single day and I don’t need any  _fucking_ therapy to be reminded—”

He would’ve said even more if he hadn’t felt the sudden cool air rippling his hair, an all-too-familiar smell lingering too long.

Needless to say, he didn’t go to any sessions after that.

* * *

 

“So you just stopped going? I thought the professor would be pissed for sure.” Shouyou jammed a beanie on his head, orange curls poking out underneath.

Tobio shrugged. “She did say I had enough credits for the program, so why bother?”

“Man, wish I could exempt that course as well. Say, Kageyama, what’s up with this picture?”

“What?” Tobio looked up from putting his textbooks away.

“It flew out of your wallet. Oh wow, how old were you in this—fifteen?” Shouyou held up the photograph, now old and frayed at the edges.

“Seventeen.” The taller boy grumbled and grabbed it back, inserting it carefully where it had been for years. It was the last one they took before the accident.

“Hey—” His friend pressed on, unfazed by the crisp response. “I didn’t know you play volleyball. You should join the department team–people have been dropping out lately, we need more members.”

“I don’t play volleyball.”

“Then wh—”

“I  _played_  volleyball. Past tense. Seventeen, remember?” Tobio averted his gaze from Shouyou’s searching look. The same loss-of-interest excuse had worked for a while, but he’d rather avoid the topic entirely.

The next words out of Shouyou’s mouth, however, were more than surprising. “He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?” Then, at Tobio’s momentarily dropped mouth: “What? I’ve dated guys. I know gay when I see it.”

“We didn’t — ” Tobio stopped short, realising everything all at once so fast it nearly gave him an aneurysm. It was exhilarating and crushing, complicated and so stupidly simple at the same time, an answer that solved a thousand problems but brought a million more, a plethora of over-saturated memories rushing back to him, the crucial puzzle piece that explained the gaping hole in his heart that felt like it would never heal— _so that’s what it is,_ he stood there rooted to the ground, dumbstruck.

So that’s what it was. The years of emptiness and a lack of any attraction to anyone else, the day he gave away all his volleyball equipment without further thought, the weeks he’d spent skipping classes and crying on building rooftops, all the way back to the way his heart stopped every time Hajime ran his fingers through Tobio’s hair, even until the younger boy had overtaken him in height. The reason why he kept that photograph in his wallet, even now.

“Do you smell something, though?” He asked instead, turning his head to a familiar scent and the faintest breeze on his face.

“Can’t smell a thing, man,” Hinata replied casually, as if he hadn’t just uprooted Tobio’s entire world. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

* * *

“Yeah, just—hold on, will you?” Officer Kyono said wearily into the phone before turning back, no less perplexed by the reports in front of her. What should have been a common accident had quickly escalated into a mystery upon examination. Several accounts of eyewitnesses clearly stated the boy had been hit straight on—to survive the internal bleeding from that sort of impact would be a miracle. Even the truck driver admitted he was going way over the speed limit.

So why did the body remain completely, utterly unscathed?

If it weren’t for this abnormality, she would have finished filing up the case by now. The family wanted nothing but the boy laid to rest and the tragedy left behind them. An understandable sentiment. The officer could easily omit the unusual and move on; nobody really reviews those reports anyway. She sighed and shifted her pile of papers around.

Hajime sighed with her, though of course it went unheard, and turned to Tobio. “She’s gonna have a hard time explaining the situation your body was left in.”

The younger boy—not that age really mattered for them anymore, although Hajime flaunted his technical seniority every other sentence—rolled his eyes. “Since you were so heroic as to swoop in—I didn’t even know ghosts can do that.”

“You were the one who pushed that goddamn kid out of the way and took the blow for yourself. I’m just your knight in shining armour.”

“Well, but if I hadn’t responded to him in the first place he wouldn’t have followed me across the street—”

“I’m trying to say I love you, so take the goddamn credit, Tobio.” Hajime laughed, reaching up to ruffle Tobio’s hair. “But then again I wouldn’t expect much from a guy who spent years figuring out he had a crush on me.”

Tobio cracked a smile, closing his eyes to cherish the feeling. “Cut me some slack. I’m still getting used to it.”

* * *

 

_i wanna live with you / even when we’re ghosts  
_ _**\- say you won’t let go, james arthur** _

**Author's Note:**

> i need to stop writing about tobio realising his feelings after a million years.
> 
> title inspiration is from the lyrics of 'two ghosts'.


End file.
